Gods of Darkness
It is said that in the beginning, the Light...that is also called God in countless worlds... created the Universe itself, in its many variations... different parallel worlds, timelines and dimensions.
It first created the ancient beings, the Angels of Heaven. And then... much later, it created Earth and humanity...
Outside of the Light´s reach lies the Darkness
...and the Darkness created all the Demons of old and the Forces of Destruction and Chaos in the world... and then finally the Darkness spawned the Devils.
xxxxxx
Sleep... that was all Issei was be able to think about right now.
The young boy had just seconds before literally fallen into his bed. Given how he had spent the day... and the one before, this was no wonder.
On the first look Issei Hyoudou was a regular 16... nearly 17 years old teenager whose currently in his second year at highschool in his hometown Kuoh.
Well, not that normal. Under his fellow students and most other people he knew, he was after all an outsider and a known notorious pervert. This went so far that he and his two best friends Matsuda and Motohama were only known as the Perverted Trio at Kuoh Academy. The three of them had by now been caught time and time again peeking on the girl's locker rooms, bringing porn magazines to school, offending female students with lecherous comments or similar things.
The truth however was a little bit more complicated. The truth was Issei Hyoudou was a Devil... and far more than that.
He was a Sacred Gear user, one of the supernatural weapons once created by God himself.
Like all carriers of Sacred Gear's, he was born human and only later reincarnated into a Devil after he had died, after he had been killed... murdered.
Issei´s Sacred Gear was one of the strongest in existence, a so called Longinus. The Boosted Gear. Sealed inside of it was the living essence of the Dragon Ddraig, the Red Heavenly Dragon, a being so powerful that it could kill Devil Kings and Gods. He was the Red Dragon Emperor.
Right now however he was just a boy tired from the events of the last day.
He was lying in his bed.
Of course, like it has always been in the last months, he was surrounded by the bodies of two or three naked girls. At least when it came to that, things were good.
In this night it were Akeno, Asia and Irina. All of them were completely naked, cuddled unto him, lying here in bed with him... and all of them already asleep. With other words it was like in nearly every night for the last half year. He would not have believed this if someone had told him this in the time before.
He fell into sleep... peacefully. Dreaming. Yet it wouldn´t stay like this for long.
His `peaceful´ dreams... involved of course - naturally as far as it came to him - to a great part even more girls and their breasts, especially their breasts.
But they were soon interrupted. They were replaced with something else...
... something darker and much more sinister.
xxx
He remembered how it had come to this...
They had spent the entire last week locating and hunting down a group of scattered members of one of the many factions of the Khaos Brigade...and that's in a remote mountain area somewhere in China.
That meant in this case a region of an over a thousand square miles that they had to look over. And they didn´t have the slightest idea where in this area... if at all... the enemy was hiding.
The first half of the day, much like the five days before, had consisted of planning, long instructions and then finally swarming out to actually look for them.
It was far too much place to search the area on foot, cars were impossible because of the mountains and constantly using magic circles for transportation would have cost far too much energy. That left only one way of transportation for this work, their own devil-wings.
So searching meant in this case for the most part spending the entire day flying around, covering large distances in as little time as possible and the whole time using their senses to look for any sign of their targets... and at the same time always staying on guard in case they actually came closer to the enemy and they decided to ambush them. As you can guess it was a more than troublesome and stressful activity.
xxx
The information they were following had first been brought up in an informal meeting of some of the leaders of the Devils and the Fallen Angels.
They said that a group of members of the terrorist organization were supposedly hiding in the regions of Eastern China. They had nobody else anywhere in this area.
And since Rias, who was present since the meeting was being held in her `home-base´ at Kuoh Academy, had `volunteered´ for the job, it was up to them.
Volunteered meant in this case that she had announced in front of her brother and the other leaders that she and her Peerage would do everything and were up to anything to take this small party of the terrorist organization out for good.
... And sadly - at least in Issei´s opinion - all of them took her by her word.
The small grin on Azazel´s face when they accepted her offer should have been a warning for them. He had known how this would end... he must have. That was why he had been all too happy to let them do it instead of his own people.
So it came to that they spend the next half week travelling regularly to China by magic portal and back.
The problem wasn´t the strength of the enemy or to fight them. No, the problem didn´t involve fighting at all.
The problem was that they didn´t even find them. In fact, they had spent the entire week here and had not seen a glimpse of the ones they were looking for.
They had wasted the entire week... for nothing. Their entire team had teleported from Japan to China and back several times, they kept flying and wandering around for countless hours to find the enemies hideout, always keeping their eyes open not to be ambushed and attacked.
But they found nothing.
Then, just a few hours ago, they received a message that by their information the terrorists had already left the area some time ago. In other words, it had all been nothing but a wild-goose chase.
For this one time Issei truly wished Buchou - Rias -... had just simply kept her mouth shut.
xxx
Back in the present, Issei´s dream
He suddenly felt as if he was drifting through empty space. As he looked, he could not see anything. Everywhere around him was nothing but black.
A part of him, a small part that was actually aware that he was asleep and dreaming, was a bit annoyed that he had been ripped away from his `beautiful´ dreams.
But that was only a part of him. Another one was asking himself where he was
Inside his own mind, he was still floating through a dark, seemingly endless, empty room.
But then suddenly, he could see something. There, in front of him.
Something that was shaping itself out of the dark. At first it was only a small speck on the endless black horizon.
But this `thing´ was quickly coming closer... getting larger and larger until it filled his entire view.
It´s size was enormous.
Issei could barely believe it. All `happy´ thoughts, that his dreams about girls and their breasts had caused, were instantly banished from his mind.
What he was seeing now was a monstrosity. There was no other way to describe it.
The being before him had seven heads, all looking very differently and every single one of them seemed dangerous by itself. Together they were the most nightmarish sight he had ever seen.
This creature was clearly the most frightening being he had ever seen before... and he had seen many strange and frightening things during the months since he was Devil.
[666... Trihexa,] Issei heard this words shouting from somewhere deep inside his mind, in Dgraig´s voice.
Did Ddraig somehow knew this being? Or had at least an idea what it was? Good possible, he thought.
But right now he couldn´t ask him. Issei knew as the wielder of the Boosted Gear, Ddraig was permanently fused to his mind and his soul. But now... somehow... he just didn´t seem to be there. It was as if he was far away.
This creature seemed to be some sort of Dragon, Issei was quite sure about that. One like he had never seen before. It wasn´t like Ddraig, Tannin or even Great Red.
Issei couldn´t help himself, but something about this being that he saw before him felt terrible and fundamentally wrong. As if it was something that shouldn´t even exist. And something about it seemed to scare him to the bone.
Yes... the being before him was the most frightening he had ever seen in his life... But only for a moment.
Because seconds later another figure was becoming visible in the darkness... and as impossible as it sounds, this one scared Issei even more.
It was a completely black... giant humanoid shape. The only reason Issei could even clearly make out it´s outlines before the dark background, was that it was moving. That and it´s glowing blood red eyes, that shone through the black void around them and seemed to bore right into him.
And it was coming closer.
In opposite to the bizarre Dragon, this being seemed less like an abomination to him. No, instead it radiated a pure unspeakable terror that kept him frozen in place.
While the living shadow before him was growing larger and larger, the seven headed beast seemed to be shrinking down.
Until it moved close to and took its place at the feet of the black figure, nearly as if it was some sort of... pet?
Then he heard a voice howling through the void, coming from the figure in front of him.
"Issei... Hyoudou..." it was a deep, firm, but at the same nearly toneless voice... like it wasn´t human at all, "I see you... we see you," the voice dug into his mind and his soul.
xxx
Issei opened his eyes. Above he saw the ceiling of his bedroom. He felt the naked bodies of the girls pressing against him. This calmed him down, a little bit at least.
He had woken up. It was a nightmare. Only a nightmare, he told himself.
He heard one of the girls moving behind him. She must have woken up because of his sudden movements. He was just about to say an apology.
But then he felt her arms laying around him, pulling him into a gentle hug. Even better, her breasts were pressing against his back.
But then he startled. The breasts didn´t felt like they should have. Instead of soft and warm like they should, they were hard and raw like rock... and cold like ice.
"Issei-kun. How are you?" He heard the voice of the girl behind him... and froze. It was a voice he would recognize everywhere. It was the voice of his first girlfriend, his first love... and his killer.
A little over a half year ago, a girl had asked him out and became his girlfriend. A short time later they went to a date together... and she murdered him at the same evening, for reasons he did not even fully understood to this day.
She had been a Fallen Angel as he found out and for some reason, because of his Sacred Gear, she had deemed him a threat and decided to kill him.
And she had died herself only a short time later. But yet she was here.
He turned around. Every instinct inside him told him not to do it, not to look at her. But he still did...
... and froze in horror as soon as he saw her.
"Raynare." He wanted to shout her name, but he saw that couldn´t bring a word out.
It was truly her, completely naked like the other girls.
But she was `different´ from the times he had seen her before. He knew now why her breasts had felt so unnatural.
Her normally already pale skin was now completely white, dried out and lifeless... and it seemed to be falling apart and paling off her body. Her black feathered wings were ripped up and hanging in shreds on her back. She had two large and deep gashes in her face, that were however not even bleeding.
He looked at her breasts. The lifeless skin on them seemed like crinkled paper.
Her beautiful violet colored eyes were now speckled with deep red glowing spots, glowing at him.
"Hi Ise-kun, have you missed me?" the living corps asked him in a `friendly´ voice and smiled at him coldly.
Now Issei couldn´t hold himself back anymore. He started to scream.
xxx
Issei was waking up screaming. The girls around him were of course instantly awake as well. Of course they were all a bit... or more... annoyed at being woken up like that. But one look at him took their minds off such thoughts.
A nightmare. It had all been only a nightmare, he thought as he looked around.
"Issei-kun, are you okay?" Irina asked him worried.
He wanted to answer her, to tell her everything was alright. But he couldn´t bring himself to say anything.
Why did it had to be her again? He had thought he had left it all behind him. That he had finally gotten over it... over her.
He remembered...
xxxxxxx
Some time ago...
At night...
It was inside a church, here at Kuoh... A once holy building that had however been abandoned for several years at this point.
A fight had taken place here and had just ended.
In the hall of the building, an injured and beaten up girl was lying on the ground, surrounded by four others. They were all looking like teenagers... But this was only the half-truth.
The truth was the girl was a Fallen Angel...and the young people standing around her... were Devils.
She had just completed her plan to remove the Sacred Gear from the excommunicated Nun Asia Argento, the Twilight Healing and take it for herself, a process that had killed Asia. Something that Raynare had been willing to accept for what the Twilight Healing would give her.
But she had been defeated, by none other than Issei Hyoudou - one of the Devils before her.
"... Issei, please," the girl pleaded. "I love you, I love you so much," she called out.
For a short moment he could only look at her. It was her who had killed him only a few days ago - on their first date - that led to him becoming what he was now, a reincarnated Devil... and now she had killed Asia, who had become a friend to him in only a short time.
For a moment he looked unsure... and pained.
But then he thought about what she did to Asia... and to him.
Then he turned around, away from her. But the truth was, he was feeling even worse than before.
"Please Buchou... I can´t deal with this..." he said quietly and trembling. With a few words he sealed the fate of the girl before him.
`Buchou´ - Rias Gremory - the Devil who had brought him back to life, stepped forward.
She said a few last words before she used her powers against the girl on the ground before them. She raised her arm and unleashed her energy at her target. From one moment to the other the body of the girl was disintegrated... ceased to exist.
All what was left were a number of black feathers who were floating through the room... and a heartbroken young man.
He grieved openly for Asia, the girl who died several minutes ago...
... and in secret also for the girl who had died just now.
xxxxxxx
Somewhere, a place close by... and yet away
There was only darkness, emptiness, a black void that the single soul was drifting through...
... and then suddenly light.
She could see again, could hear again... She remembered. She remembered her own name...Raynare...how she died. When had that been? Only minutes ago? Or had it been days? Weeks? Months?
She remembered her terrifying fear... and her only hope.
She was looking around in confusion, looking down on herself, her hands, her body. But she didn´t see anything.
No, she thought, if she concentrated hard, she could make out the contours of her old form. But they only became visible when she willed it.
She was dead, wasn´t she? Or was she? Maybe what she was should not be called death but something else. She was a phantom, a spectre... just like she had intended to.
Dread and disgust came over her, as she recalled how she was being reduced to nothing but a shivering mess, pleading to someone who could barely look at her anymore. But still...
The last thing she had seen was that red haired Devil Bitch, as she unleashed her powers on her, destroying her body... but not her.
Suddenly her mind completely shook off the confusion that had overcome her. She was thinking clear again.
As she was looking around she saw that she was still inside the church building. The small group of Devils was right in front of her.
She saw however that nobody was paying attention to her... good. They could not see her. They had no idea that she will still there, still existed in this world.
It had worked, she thought. Against her own expectations it actually worked. If she was honest, she hadn´t thought it would, but she had nothing to lose... and yet it did.
"It worked," she actually said `loud´.
Of course they didn´t hear her. She was not longer physically here after all.
Yes, it did work. Even if it shouldn´t have, she thought a moment later. It had been a last ditch effort in the truest sense of the word.
She remembered the conditions for the method she had used trying to cheat death. It had worked only for a single reason.
"Oh Issei," she nearly laughed out in a nearly happy tone, as far as that was possible for her being reduced to a phantom, "who would have thought?"
But only a moment later something else happened. She felt something, a nearly physical force, pulling at herself. Something else that shouldn´t have been possible.
Suddenly everything around her changed... the room she was standing in. The entire place around her. No, it didn´t change, she realized, she - her spirit itself - was being drawn away.
xxxxxxx
Seconds later she found herself somewhere else.
Wherever this was, it was certainly not a place she had ever seen before. It was neither Earth or the Underworld. That was clear.
The sky above her was nothing but black... no stars... no moon or sun to see. She then noticed that the reason for this were small dark particles that filled the air and were blocking the light... ash.
The area around her was a desolate landscape... a wasteland, covered with large stones and with bizarre rock formations that she could see in some distance, that seemed to stretch until the horizon.
As she took a closer look however she realized a moment later that she had been wrong. At least some of the `rocks´ covering the ground weren´t rocks at all. No, they were bones.
She could see what she now clearly recognized as a strangely formed skull lying a few meters before her. But it wasn´t one from a human, Angel or even Devil... in fact it belonged to a species she didn´t even know. And it was only one of many that were scattering the ground around her.
At one point, she could make out a large pile of such bones, raised up like a small mountain. It had to be the remains of hundreds, maybe thousands of these creatures.
The `bizarre rock formations´ in a few miles distance she saw now, were actually the burned out ruins of what had once been some kind of city.
Where in the world was she?
Terror was rising up in her as the implications of all she was seeing around were sinking in. Dead bodies covering the ground, cities lying in ruins. Had she been closer, she could have clearly seen the bodies of a few of the inhabitants, nailed at the broken walls, or impaled on pikes.
Ash was filling the air.
This was in fact another world, one that had been completely...
"Yes, your idea did work," she heard a voice coming from behind her, obviously referring to her attempt to save herself. "I congratulate you for that, `little Angel´."
She could feel it instantly, the power, the energy. But she could not quite believe it. Or rather her conscious mind - what was left of it after all she had just experienced- did not want to except it.
This energy, it surpassed everything she had ever sensed by far.
As she turned around she saw the source of the voice. What she saw surprised her in some sense even more than the unbelievable power itself.
She would have expected a monstrous creature, maybe a dragon. But what was before her was clearly a humanoid figure. Even if she could not make out his features.
The being was clad in a black cloak with a hood that concealed his face. The figure was sitting on some sort of throne, that looked like it was formed directly out of the rock of the ground.
She had been in the presence of Lord Azazel and Shemhazai several times. But this being not only surpassed both of them by far. No, as much as she hated to admit it, it made them look like nothing.
And while she knew by what she heard that most stronger dragons were able to change shape and take a humanoid form if they wanted, but the energy didn´t feel dragonic at all. In fact, it seemed... But that thought was too crazy to even think too it´s end.
The sheer power this being was radiating alone was staggering. It was more than enough to wipe out the Earth and the entire Underworld many times over - it felt practically endless... and she couldn´t even be sure that this was the limit of this being´s strength.
But that was not all what was alarming. The very presence of this being felt so malicious, so terrifying... so absolutely Evil, that deep down every sense in her just told her to run. In some sense it felt more like a black hole in the fabric of reality than the presence like a living being.
She was like a small animal in front of a super-predator and she knew it. Aside from the fact that it would be pointless to try to run away from something like this, she sensed that the same power that had brought her spirit here, was also holding it at this place.
She didn't have the slightest doubt that this creature was responsible for all the destruction around them.
Raynare knew she was overly proud and could easily be considered as arrogant. But even before Issei-kun had literally beaten some sense into her, she would not have been so stupid to feel anything but terror in the presence of such a being.
She herself wasn´t a kindhearted person by any definition. Far from it. Just a short time ago, she had bound an innocent young girl on a cross and forcefully removed her Sacred Gear from her body... killing her in the process.
Just a few days before that, she had dated a boy just for the purpose of killing him in the end.
But this... this was far beyond her.
"I see you are a little bit shocked. You don´t need to worry," the being told her casually. The voice, clearly that of a man, sounded smooth and in a twisted was comforting. "I have brought you here to talk. You and a few others in your reality have actually managed to catch our interest. And right now a have a bit of time for you. As you can surely imagine I have many other things to do."
He made a small gesture with his hand and suddenly Raynare felt nearly as if she were fully `alive´ again. As she looked at herself, she saw that she again possessed a solid body.
"This `body´ you have now is a psychic construct that I have created for you... for the moment. It makes it easier to talk `face to face´, don´t you agree?" he stated. "Of course it is formed only through my power and will exist only as long as you are in my presence," he told her.
That meant as soon as he would no longer be around she would once again be a formless spirit, she thought.
"But let us talk," he continued. "If we come to an agreement, there might be much more that I can offer you."
`Talk? Yes,´ a sarcastic part of her thought, `you have destroyed an entire world here. But let us just sit down together and talk.´
Why should such a being even have an interest to talk to her? He intended to make her some kind of offer, so much was clear. But at what price? Creatures like that never did anything for free.
Suddenly the monstrous aura that surrounded him vanished. Or rather he was hiding it very well. But she had no longer any doubt about one thing. She had felt it clearly as he had addressed her. Now that she once again possessed a body or at least something very close, her senses also worked perfectly again.
In the center of this - this monster - was the presence of a human. But it seemed to be also mixed with something else.
Who and whatever this was, he was clearly some kind of super-being.
"Your senses work well Little Angel. But of course I also made no effort to hide my nature," he said to her in a tone that now actually sounded a bit amused.
Normally she would have exploded at the idea of anybody calling her something like that. But for obvious reasons she knew that with this guy this would be a very very bad idea.
"Actually, it would only amuse me if you did," the man told her casually.
Raynare froze. Had he just been reading her thoughts? Without her even noticing? she asked herself. How? She was a Fallen Angel, her own mental powers were excellent.
She could now see his face under the hood. To her surprise it was the face of someone who looked like a young man... But his eyes, for a short moment she noticed they were glowing in a deep crimson red.
"Who... who are you?" she could only ask.
"Who I am? That is a question I have been asked many times," the being responded. "I have many names and have been called many things over the centuries. You can for now call me... Faust."
Wasn´t that this guy from the play who made a pact with a Devil? she thought, not missing the irony.
Then he said the words that unsettled her even more than before.
"You could say that I am a proud but faithful servant of my master whose power spreads all universes and all existence... an agent of the force that keeps the universe moving forward," the being declared sinisterly.
One though shot through Raynare´s mind. This being alone possessed a power that was far beyond her comprehension and managed to scare her in every fiber of her existence.
If he was the servant... then just who in the world was the master?
xxxxxxx
Back in Kuoh inside the abandoned church, the Devils had just brought Asia back to life, who was with that now a Devil herself of course... and she and Issei had a heartfelt reunion.
What they didn't realize was that the whole time, eyes were following them...
Eyes that belonged to beings that were beyond their understanding and were watching them from beyond the brink of their reality.
This is the sister-story to `Issei Hyoudou: The Guardian´. Both stories are playing in alternate realities to each other and are both part of the already established multiverse.
The background in both is the war of two super-powers across multiple universes. One of them are the Guardians who will also be mentioned here at a few points. Here however it will be their enemies who will be more dominant. This story will be much darker than the first one.
The idea of Raynare becoming some sort of spirit or phantom in Issei´s mind has already been used in several other stories. `A Man´s Heart´ from Kyuubi Gohan is the most prominent on my mind here. I am however trying to give the idea a little different spin here.
The eight chapter of `Guardian´ will be updated in the next days.
Side note: The character calling himself `Faust´ had already been introduced in Issei´s vision in chapter 4 of `Issei Hyoudou: The Guardian´. Here he was just described as the opponent of the Guardian called Darien. He is also one of the `Lords´ mentioned in chapter 7.
Highschool dxd or anything related doesn´t belong to me.